Palm Sunday Sermon
When I was growing up we read the Passion account from Matthew on the fifth Sunday of Lent, and the account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on the sixth sunday. We called that sixth Sunday “Palm Sunday'' although officially it was known as the Second Sunday of the Passion. With the publication of the Novus Ordo in 1969, the two Sundays were merged into one in the Catholic lectionary, and Catholics and other Christian denominations did the same thing with the
Revised Common Lectionary a few years later. That’s why you get to hear two gospels today.
And that’s probably worth thinking about. We start out with Jesus entering Jerusalem in a manner that reflects a prophecy, which Saint Matthew quotes for us. And it’s obvious that Jesus engineered the whole thing. And the crowd went along, throwing branches and clothing on the road and cheering. This was in contrast of course, to another parade going on, the one Pilate held every Passover, when he would march into Jerusalem with his troops as a show of force reminding the crowds that if there was any hint of rebellion or unrest, bad things would happen to you. Jesus in his parade mocks Pilate.
Then we get to the gospel, which in this reading is also from Matthew. Next year it will be Mark, in 2025 it will be Luke. and we find a very different crowd, crying out “Crucify him!” Why did things change so quickly?
Shusako Endo, a Japanese Christian writer famous for the novel “Silence”, wrote a book called “A life of Jesus”. As he retells the story with which we are all so familiar, he attempts to show why Jesus’ last days on earth involved such turmoil. As we know, when Jesus began his public ministry he attracted huge crowds. It was a time when the Jewish people were in something of a religious revival. You had Sadducees wanting to become integrated into the mighty Roman empire; you had Pharisees who wanted to revive and live the old Jewish traditions; you had armed rebels in the countryside who were trying to break away from Roman rule, the so-called Zealots; and everybody was wondering if this was the time when the Messiah would come, the one predicted by the prophets, the one who, if you looked at the prophecy of Daniel in the right way, should be coming along any minute now. And whether the Messiah was a prophet, a priest or a king, everyone knew that he would turn the world upside down, and everyone hoped that he would bring about a strong independent Jewish nation where people could devote themselves to the pure worship of God.
Could Jesus be the one?
We see this expectation as we read the gospels. And we see Jesus slipping away from the crowds, going into hiding. We see Jesus avoiding cities and towns as his fame became widespread. And if you were a Jew with the hope that Jesus was the Messiah, why was he hiding, why was he crossing the lake to get away from the crowds, why just when he had them all listening to his every word, did he continue to disappoint? Even his cousin John wondered, and from prison asked Jesus, the one he baptized, the one of whom he witnessed a voice coming out of heaven, “Are you the one who is to come or shall we look for another?”
So imagine you are one of these people, and you’ve been alternatively thrilled and disappointed in Jesus, and now it looks like Jesus is finally ready to act. He comes into Jerusalem just like the prophets predicted. Rome will be overthrown! Israel will be restored! And nothing happens. In fact he’s starting to say crazy things, “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you will not have life within you”.
Then Jesus surfaces again, this time arrested by the authorities, tried and condemned to death by crucifixion. And you are in that crowd, you want nothing more to do with this charlatan, you join the mob yelling “Crucify him!”
On Palm Sunday, which crowd shall we join? Or shall we be like the apostles who said, “Where shall we go, Lord, you have the words of everlasting life?”
